


always lose, lose

by BucketofWater



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Inappropriate Use Of Find Familiar, Literally Just Molly Pining, M/M, Mollymauk Is A Shameless Flirt, Pining, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-28
Updated: 2020-03-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23362534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BucketofWater/pseuds/BucketofWater
Summary: “It’s like he’s knocked out, or something,” Jester said, very seriously, “he can’t hear you, or see you. I don’t even think he can feel anything, if I’m remembering right.”Mollymauk watched Caleb in that strange glass-eyed drowse, and came to the startling realisation that he loved him. Confessions could come easily when Caleb would never truly know, after all.Spoiler; Jester did not remember right.
Relationships: Mollymauk Tealeaf/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 18
Kudos: 421





	always lose, lose

**Author's Note:**

> I can't explain - this was only supposed to be 2k words. this entire fic was brought to you by Her Sweet Kiss on repeat until I hated it. 
> 
> still missing Molly 2k20. my only regret is that Nott is not more involved.

Mollymauk had never seen a Wizard transfer his senses to a Familiar before.  
  
Or, well, perhaps he had, once upon a time. Presently his mind was heady with a mist of almost memories, of a time before he exhumed himself from a shallow grave burrowed in a cloven hill. He knew he had seen many things before that time, that he had memories of things prior to sprigs of heather twisting in the biting breeze, but he did not truly remember and found that he had no great desire to know.  
  
Mollymauk _assumed_ that he had never seen a Wizard do this before, and that was good enough, really.   
  
It was jarring, and deeply upsetting the first time it had happened. Caleb, with his dark eyes like flecks of coal eager to be kindled into a spark of flame, had clasped a hand tightly over Beauregard’s shoulder, and that haunted, intriguing gaze was abruptly washed away by a sheet of silver. Mollymauk had blinked, a low noise of surprise twisting high in his throat, as the expression fell over him. The worry remained, even as the lithe man continued to speak, words subdued and awkward, as if uncertain:  
  
“Now I see what Frumpkin sees,” he said, the corners of his mouth twisting fondly upwards as he mentioned his cat, “I obviously now cannot see you, _or_ hear you-” he continued, hurriedly, just as Jester interrupted:  
  
“Oh! Does Frumpkin see them, then!?”  
  
“-if you need me to come back, just tap my shoulder.”   
  
A blur of movement caught Mollymauk’s attention, and he swallowed down on his brazen smile as he watched Beauregard’s hand innocuously curl into a fist at her side.   
  
They had all huddled awkwardly then, shoulders taught with unspeakable tension and idle worry ebbing and rising like a restless tide in his chest. It seemed that Caleb had left them for a stint of hours, stretching silent and worried, but truly if they had a clock Mollymauk believed he was only gone away in that strange place for a matter of minutes.  
  
Fjord paced idly, the scuff of his leather heel dragging over the stone flagons. Beauregard began to flex her hands, the leather of her gloves creaking deafeningly in the silence. Caleb seemed to stoop against her, his brow deeply lined with some foreign, unreadable emotion. Mollymauk never realised how difficult it was to truly know a person, without seeing their eyes.  
  
To meet that milky, empty expression was unsettling, and set his nerves to a knife-edge, raising the hair along his arms. Instead, he dropped his gaze and stared intently at Nott, who was mindlessly picking at the mechanism of her crossbow as if the entire thing were dreadfully unremarkable.   
  
Mollymauk was still unsure about magic. He lived in a world rife with it, saw Jester mend wounds with an imbued touch and how so many of Caleb’s spells became soothing wards and gentle enhancements. Even his own talents, he knew, were not entirely mundane. But there was something about it that disturbed him, a strange flash of panic that flared in his heart whenever he thought too hard about it, a deep stirring in those snarled, misty not-quite-memories of his.  
  
“He’s heading to the docks,” Caleb said. In the heavy silence his voice seemed to toll like a brass bell.  
  
Truly, he did not know what else he expected, when he risked a glance upwards. For Caleb’s eyes to still be swathed with milky paleness, perhaps? But when Mollymauk attempted to catch that flighty gaze, he found instead the cool, tepid darkness was there again, and saw flecks of amber that cluttered his blue iris like constellations.   
  
Mollymauk smiled, and was not at all surprised to find that Caleb ducked his head and did not return the expression. 

\---

Eventually, he got used to that strange spell.   
  
As one was able to adjust to other regular occurrences, he learned slowly to ignore the habit, and to not think so deeply on the intricacies. The vacant gaze still worried him, but otherwise he was content enough that the spell worked, and the other finer details really weren’t any problem, seeing as no one (including Caleb, although the Wizard himself likely would not) was getting hurt. It was just the same as everything else, it just worked, and the nitty-gritty really didn’t bother him.  
  
He was not like Nott, in that regard. For starters, he was much taller, and (if you were to ask Mollymauk) he was certainly more handsome, but ultimately he had no desire to tinker with things and to know the mechanisms behind them. Nott often delved into alchemy and mechanical gears, smeared with soot and probing to find out just how things worked.   
  
So if Caleb were to slip away into the eyes of his Familiar on the occasion, Mollymauk never once stopped to think about just why and how it worked. 

\---

Many things happened to Mollymauk quickly and violently. Events unfolded before him not with a ginger introduction but toppled into him with a lurch; waking in his own grave, stumbling across the bravado of Fletching and Moondrop, the fateful evening that neatly wove his fate into the tapestry of the Nein.   
  
He had assumed, once, that the frequency of these things would let him adjust, but each new event still unnerved him, and set him on edge.   
  
It was unsurprising, then, that the same ferocity applied to his heart.   
  
So it was not gently and furtively that he lost himself to Caleb, the barbs of his heart being unfolded and left raw and adoring.   
  
It happened, as many things between them do, in the midst of battle. Sweat was heavy on his brow, sticking the silk of his shirt unpleasantly to his shoulders, a bitter thing curled on his tongue, a coat of blood that seeped from the welt on his lip. It was a generally unspoken rule between the group that they protected their softer members, and although Caleb had the potential to devastate a town at his fingertips, he was really quite easy to fell - Mollymauk would know, he himself had once sent Caleb sprawling to a tavern floor, just by clapping him too roughly on the shoulder - and that should have been warning enough, how that simple memory curled his bleeding mouth into a smile.   
  
His eyes flickered briefly over the conflict, his brain barely tracking the movements and flares of familiar colour; Beauregard’s blue twisting and dipping around the Ogre, Fjord’s flash of dark energy crackling along the creature’s skin with the deep stench of ozone; finally, his gaze fell to Caleb, slinking near the back and head for once held high.  
  
Mollymauk’s mind seemed to draw up delightfully blank, bar the vague awareness of lumbering danger in his peripheral. Caleb had his hands raised, nimble fingers weaving some arcane symbol in the air before him with methodical strokes, his lips soundlessly uttering the spell. When Mollymauk caught his eye, it was kindled with a fervid energy he rarely ever saw, a burning flash of danger and carnal power.   
  
His heart twisted unpleasantly in his chest, just as his gut seemed to melt into something soft and gooey.   
  
The next breath to shudder out of him was heavy and startled, blunt like it was punched out of him.   
  
_Oh,_ he thought with a slight frown, _Caleb was gorgeous_ , and then; _well, that’s inconvenient._

\---

Mollymauk ignored many things, it was one of his many talents. He could ignore the numb red mounds that were embedded into his skin, just as he could ignore the way Nott often stole trinkets of string and buttons from his pack. It was… much harder to ignore Caleb, or the delightful way his gut swooped when he looked at him properly.   
  
Their camp was set on a low grassy hill, an amble away from a pleasantly churning river. Night had already crawled over them, settling heavy and dark around them, studded with a few distant silver stars. In the centre of their small camp a fire was stoked, the logs creaking and spitting out a spool of smoke and little amber sparks.   
  
“Do you not think that looks really creepy?” Jester asked, from where she was sprawled to his right. Her leather journal was unfurled on her lap, and Mollymauk knew better than to risk a peek at her work - all that would earn him would be a punch with a surprising amount of strength behind it.   
  
“I don’t think we are in any position to judge creepiness,” Mollymauk said, lips pulling up into a smile, “those with horns live in glass houses and therefore shouldn’t throw stones, and all that.”  
  
Jester frowned, her nose creasing with the pout, before she said very softly: “But Molly, you don’t even have a house.”  
  
He barked a rough laugh, raising a hand to gesture loosely before them, the jingle of his bangle crying like a small bell. “I’ll give you that,” he said.   
  
“But you know that I mean,” she insisted, nodding her head toward Caleb.  
  
The man was propped awkwardly on Beauregard, his face sallow and expressionless. His eyes were entirely void, a silvery pond that sent an uncomfortable shudder trembling down his spine.  
  
“It’s like he’s knocked out, or something,” Jester said, very seriously, “he can’t hear you, or see you. I don’t even think he can feel anything, if I’m remembering right.”  
  
Mollymauk watched Caleb in that strange glass-eyed drowse, and came to the startling realisation that he loved him. How simple would it be to tell that to him, if the man were in such a stupor? Confessions could come easily when Caleb would never truly know, after all.  
  
“I bet you could pull some excellent pranks, if that’s right,” Mollymauk mused, mind wandering idly even as his eyes remained fixed intently on Caleb, distorted by the brilliant red of the firelight, splaying in his hair.   
  
“ _Molly!_ ” Jester squeaked, as if dreadfully affronted, “that is an excellent idea. I can’t believe I didn’t even think of that!”  
  
The rest of the evening unfolded over plans of harmless pranks, with Jester gesturing excitedly between them and ticking off her countless ideas on her fingers. Mollymauk would only interject, gently, if he believed any of them were too much (tricking Caleb into believing he had been gone for two-hundred years, for example, seemed a tad bit too cruel.)  
  
Instead, his thoughts were occupied in his own plans, less harmless for Caleb, but perhaps more so for himself. It wouldn’t fix anything, he tried to reason, it wouldn’t make the feelings suddenly vanish. Having the words slip from his tongue could possibly damn him even further, if he were not careful with it.   
  
But it could be done. He could tell Caleb his heart, let it spill between them, and see if that would make the whole mess go away, so that Mollymauk could drag his head from the gutter and things could go back to normal again.   
  
It was worth giving everything a shot once, as Bo used to say. Even if that may have just been referring to acts. 

\---

It was a long while before he found himself alone with Caleb.   
  
For all that the Mighty Nein tended to be a gaggle of loners with a sour streak a mile wide, they lived very much in each other's pockets; figuratively for most, potentially literally for Nott.   
  
Mollymauk was used to the lack of privacy, it was another staple in the strange life he found himself wandering in. He had been surrounded by people in the circus, stacked in amongst one another like peas in a pod, just as how the Nein now swamped around one another. He didn’t think many of the others were used to it, maybe Beauregard and Fjord, who at least knew to loudly claim an area for their bedrolls before the opportunity was lost.   
  
So it was simple enough for him to live with these people, to ignore sleep mussed hair and streaked eyeliner during breakfast, to keep his gaze at a respectful shoulder-height when they all had to bathe in the rivers. Jester, despite her modest upbringing, found river baths ridiculously fun.  
  
So, with all of their travelling and sleeping in dog piles to fend off the cold evenings, it never really occurred to Mollymauk how hard it would be to catch Caleb alone.   
  
The problem was resolved, as many of them often are, by Fjord.  
  
“Mollymauk, take the first watch,” he said, voice dampened and tired, “and Caleb, see if you can scout the area real quick."  
  
Their latest job saw them in the craggy hills of Pride’s Call, a barren landscape of dark stone that swelled with black rocks and grey streams and little else. In the night the sky seemed to encompass everything, even the stars seeming to shy away and shed little light. The waxing moon had never felt so distant, and Mollymauk yearned quietly to feel that tender light. It had been decided that it was not worth risking a campfire, and the biting cold was utterly miserable.   
  
“I have no clue how I’m supposed to keep watch in the dark,” Mollymauk complained, as he trudged to the mouth of their campsite, setting himself heavily on an old moss-coated stone. The chill bit into his thighs and he set his jaw against the painful nip.  
  
“Don’t you have darkvision?” Caleb offered, voice monotonous, “I believe I recall you mentioning that, once or twice or… _you know._ ”  
  
Mollymauk watched him cautiously, heart twisting unpleasantly in his throat. The man lowered himself slowly onto the crumbled stone opposite Mollymauk, the dim moon casting him in marble light.   
  
“Was that a joke?” Mollymauk asked, having to swallow around the lump in his throat, “I genuinely can’t tell.”  
  
“I think?” Caleb replied, one of his shoulders jumping briefly in an aborted little shrug.   
  
Despite his attempt to bite it back, Mollymauk snorted, raising a hand to rub nervously over his mouth. In his chest an uncomfortable stone had swelled, and looking at Caleb’s smirking lips made it burn.   
  
“At least I have a purpose,” Mollymauk interjected, raising a hand to tap a filed claw against the ridge of his brow, “what are your eyes good for, other than being vaguely pretty?”  
  
Caleb flinched as the words settled between them, ducking his head to hide his chin behind the swath of his old scarf. His nails scraped lightly over the old stone, as he dug his fingers into it.  
  
“Hm.” His shoulder drew up like hackles, and Mollymauk found himself thinking fondly of a sputtering cat, of all things.  
  
“That was cruel,” he placated, shrugging simply even as that stone in his chest cracked and ached, “there’s nothing vague about it.”  
  
“Stop,” Caleb bit out, eyes fixed sternly on the tips of his own boots.  
  
In the pallid moonlight he seemed ethereal, somehow. The fierce burn of his hair flared against his reddening skin, stark freckles and tired bruises highlighted like strokes of paint. Mollymauk had never seen art, outside of the flashy self-painted banners of the circus, and the occasional doodle from Jester, but he had heard of that sense of gut churning awe, of seeing something so encompassing that all you could do was look and wonder.  
  
Caleb was not art, he was not even neat. His skin was smeared with dirt, sporting bitten nails and bruised knuckles. Something about him was tense and frightened, a darkness in his eye that seemed hunted.   
  
But Mollymauk stared all the same, chest heaving even as he struggled to catch his own breath.  
  
 _I love you,_ he did not say.   
  
Instead, he cleared his throat and in a voice that was entirely forced bravado, he spoke: “Do you reckon Frumpkin will be able to see in any of this?”  
  
The mention of his Familiar seemed to coax Caleb back from that subdued hunch, his eyes twitching up to Mollymauk’s general direction (he never allowed eye contact, as if offering even that small part of himself was too much, made him too vulnerable) before he nodded very softly.   
  
“He is an owl, for now,” Caleb said, clicking his fingers sharply.  
  
On the floor between them Frumpkin appeared in a whirr of mist, the grit and pebbles being scattered briefly by the creature’s sudden apparition. The downy little feathers were all askew, as if he were in the middle of grooming. The severe glare he sent towards Mollymauk made him think that perhaps the bird was not too happy about being interrupted.   
  
“Okay my little friend,” Caleb spoke very eagerly, his voice layered with a fond richness that stoked something warm in Mollymauk’s gut, “we are going to have a quick look around, yes?”  
  
Frumpkin worked his beak soundlessly, as if he had all the intention of replying. Then, with a few airy flaps of his wings he took up into the sky, and was quickly consumed by the encroaching inky blackness. Mollymauk squinted against the few stars, but found that he could not find where the bird had gone.  
  
That was probably for the best, after all, they were supposed to be discreet.   
  
When he pulled his gaze back down he found that Caleb was staring vacantly forward, his eyes clouded with that strange white fog, his brow creased in concentration. It was jarring, having the man who usually bashfully bowed his head staring so certainly forward.  
  
His nerves prickled awkwardly under the perceived attention, and he found that he had to occupy himself by shuffling and picking idly at the threads of his cloak. The stone in his chest throbbed, and an uncomfortable heat swelled along his shoulders and burned up his nape.  
  
“Well, this is dreadfully awkward,” he said, scuffing his boot over the old stone.  
  
After a further few tense minutes, he raised a hand and waved it back and forth before Caleb’s face. He watched those hollow eyes closely, searching for any sign of recognition, for any minor twitch in his expression.   
  
Caleb continued to stare blankly forward, and Mollymauk sighed heavily.  
  
Honestly, the first watch was boring enough, without having to sit in utter silence. At least second and third watch sometimes came with stories of strange dreams, and a mutual desire to complain about how tired they would be because of interrupted sleep. At least with Yasha the silence was comfortable.  
  
“Did I ever tell you about the time that I convinced a small town that I was Gustav’s bastard son? I told them that he wanted nothing to do with me, and he only kept me on out of pity. By the end of our third day there I was being showered with little presents from these people. Y’know, it’s amazing what misplaced sympathy and too-kind souls will get you-”  
  
Caleb’s brow dipped beneath a crease, and Mollymauk realised with a start that he had been staring.  
  
“-you’re not even listening to me, are you?”   
  
Caleb, of course, said nothing.  
  
Despite knowing better Mollymauk reached out and clicked his fingers roughly together, allowing his rings and bracelets to clatter as an additional flair. Caleb made no start, no indication that he heard the noise.  
  
“I think being a Wizard was a bad career plan,” Mollymauk decided, “you should have gone into confessionals.”  
  
 _Confessions._   
  
The word ricocheted in his skull like a burning headache. He had plenty of things weighing heavily on his shoulders, smothering his chest and wallowing in his heart, didn’t he?   
  
“You know, I can’t remember much of anything, and that scares me a lot, sometimes,” he said slowly. He let himself imagine that the concerned crease of Caleb’s brow was empathy, that the downward twist of his mouth was for him.  
  
“What if I have a family out there somewhere? God, what if I have a mother who I never came home to, or a sister I’m supposed to be taking care of? What if I have kids that I’ve just abandoned?”   
  
As he spoke the fears twisted, spilling out of him with surprising ease. Thoughts that he had not allowed to form now took a frightening shape on his tongue, eased by Caleb’s easy silence and lack of judgement.  
  
“How is that just? That I could have people out there, something that’s mine, and I just don’t remember? Gods, I could have a wife - or a husband - and they don’t even know where I am.  
  
“But that wouldn’t be fair, either. Because,” he had to swallow to wet his mouth, the words turning to cotton on his tongue, “ _because_ , well, I think I love you, but I don’t know if I’m allowed to do that.”  
  
 _There,_ he thought grimly, it was out, it was said.  
  
So why didn’t he feel any better?   
  
He heaved a tired sigh, reaching out one of his legs to knock his boot against Caleb’s shin. The man swayed slightly with the movement, but his gaze remained fixed upon nothing, brows furrowed and mouth frowning.   
  
Mollymauk threw his gaze around them - _y’all’re supposed to be on watch_ he heard Fjord say in the back of his mind - and found that the cliffs around them were barren, that down in their camp no movement stirred.  
  
He turned back to Caleb, allowing himself to shift closer to him, until their knees knocked lightly together. Through the thick fabric of their clothes it was hard to distinguish much, but the warm pressure was a gentle reassurance, and Mollymauk allowed himself to breathe again.   
  
When he pressed his fingers lightly to Caleb’s cheek he had to bite his lip, to hold back his smile. He kept his touch light, tracing the stern lines of his cheekbones, allowing his nails to rasp over the stubble of his jaw. His heart was a force in his throat, beating an errant little plea of reason that he could not find himself to heed.   
  
His fingers mapped out the man’s face, dusting over the weather-beaten blemishes beneath his glassy eyes, smoothing up and gentling the crease between his brows. Caleb’s face fit his hand well, his palm cupping his jaw lightly and entirely.   
  
Briefly, he wondered how it would feel to touch so gently, if those dark eyes were focused on him. If that coal dark gaze would flare with equal longing and lust.   
  
But, ah, that was too much. His mind was wandering too far.   
  
Hesitantly, he drew his hand away, allowing it to fall to Caleb’s lithe shoulder and squeeze companionably. Caleb’s fingers, where they were curled against the rock, were locked in an intense grip.   
  
He withdrew, and turned his gaze outwards towards the craggy hills, darkened like slate. In the distance a pitiful tree bowed beneath the light breeze, thin branches creaking with a distorted cry.   
  
Deep in his chest his heart ached.   
  
Unsurprisingly, the feeling did not disappear. If anything, those selfish, tender touches only bolstered them in his chest, imbued them in his soul until his fingers ached to trace Caleb’s skin again.   
  
Watching him became painful and necessary, his eyes seeking him out in that pale moonlight, drinking in his sweet expression and craving that rough voice and harrowed words.   
  
That stone in his chest hardened and hurt. It was unfair, and satisfying, and heart-wrenching.   
  
“Mollymauk,” Caleb said, the word shattering the terse silence.  
  
Mollymauk flinched, attempting to push the sudden flare of shame down even as it settled hotly on his skin like a brand. When he allowed himself to look Caleb’s eyes were still lost in that glossy sheen, his white teeth biting into the plump of his lower lip.  
  
He did not know what to say. Could he even say anything? Caleb could not hear him like this. Mollymauk watched, utterly confused, and feeling his brow grow heavy with his frown.   
  
Caleb’s shoulder hitched up again, all hackles and tension, before he hesitantly lowered it, inclining his head to the side, as if allowing space for a hand. As if in an invitation.  
  
 _Oh_ , Mollymauk mused, _that’s strange.  
  
_ “If-” Caleb’s voice was terse, as if Mollymauk could hear it rattling feebly in his chest. “If you need me, or something is wrong you can, erm, just…-” he heaved a tremendous sigh- “you know… give me a tap.”  
  
Slowly, like the gears of some great mechanism, everything clicked into place. Caleb’s clutching hands when he slipped into Frumpkin’s head, Beauregard’s heavy hand and curling fist.   
  
Caleb was still tethered to them. Caleb could still feel.  
  
Mollymauk’s throat grew tight, panic seizing his shoulders with frigid talons, creaking his bones and burning his flesh.  
  
“Otherwise, you can, ah… hah.” Caleb’s lips twisted into a bitter smile, “if you _want_ , keep on, you know…”  
  
Mollymauk was tremendously thankful that Caleb could not hear him, so that he missed the utterly broken sound that tore from his throat.  
  
Then, the cogs in his brain seized, and shuddered into thought. Because surely Caleb had not just extended an invitation to him. Surely that was some distorted fantasy splaying in his mind.  
  
When he dragged his gaze back from staring abashedly at his boots, he found that Caleb’s head was still tilted awkwardly, expression open and vulnerable and tinged with a worried frown.   
  
“‘If I want’ he says,” Mollymauk muttered to absolutely no one.   
  
When he placed his hand on Caleb again, palm encompassing the side of his jaw and fingers pressing against the ridge of his ear, the man twitched below him, fingernails scraping against the rock.  
  
Strangely enough, it felt comfortable between them. Mollymauk allowed his fingers to pet over his skin, his nails brushing over the coarse hair and scraping across Caleb’s scalp in tranquil little ministrations. Gradually Caleb melted into the touches, allowing his head to rest heavily against Mollymauk’s palm, soft breaths shuddering out of him when Mollymauk would scrape against a particularly soothing spot.  
  
He babbled, despite knowing that Caleb could not hear him. He spoke of his few fond memories, stories of folk from the circus and acts that he had tried and had given up as a bad job; juggling, surprisingly, was not his forte.  
  
“I swear to the Gods I practised as hard as I could,” Mollymauk said, looking over Caleb’s shoulder and into the darkness. He should at least make a minor effort to keep watch, really. “But the first show of that season he pushed me out there with these crystal throwing pins - _crystal,_ Caleb - obviously I dropped them on the third cycle and shattered two of them into literal dust. I think I still owe him for those pins, now that I think about it-”  
  
“You should have earned enough on our ventures to repay him by now.” Caleb’s voice interrupted, and Mollymauk flinched hardly, nails digging into Caleb’s scalp in shock.  
  
“ _Ouch,_ ” Caleb hissed.  
  
“So…” Mollymauk started, flexing his hand and relishing in the feel of Caleb’s hair tangling around his fingers. Strangely, hysterical laughter seemed to brew in his throat. “Did Frumpkin see anything?”  
  
The look Caleb levelled him with was thoroughly unimpressed, a rather tactful thing to muster considering his head was still tenderly cradled in Mollymauk’s hand. His eyes were reclaimed, blue and heady, with sparks of brilliant amber like a sputtering fire. His gaze was ash and flame.   
  
“All quiet,” Caleb dismissed.   
  
He seemed utterly content to ignore Mollymauk’s tender touches, to disregard the fact he was curling into him. That was fine, really. Mollymauk could swallow down all of this longing in his heart and they could neatly tiptoe around it until he died once again. His finger snagged on another errant curl of hair, and he twisted it idly.  
  
“You should use a comb, next time,” he said, colouring his voice with sarcasm to disguise the need and want in the words.   
  
Caleb heaved a breath of air that may have been a hollow laugh. Mollymauk was going to pretend it was a laugh, and he was going to brand that sound into his mind.   
  
“Give me some warning next time,” Caleb sighed, mouth curling around a whisper, “and I may be able to reciprocate.”   
  
Mollymauk’s chest stuttered, his heart faltered and his breath constricted, but his hand kept tracing reverent touches.  
  
“You still can,” Mollymauk smirked, hope distorting the words, wilting them with desperation, even as he schooled his expression into something wry.   
  
Caleb’s hand rose between them, fingers twitching hesitantly. Even Caleb seemed affronted by the gesture, scowling down at his own limb as if it had offended him by having the audacity to move.   
  
Eventually Caleb’s hand pressed too firmly against Mollymauk’s chest, curling against the silk of his shirt and the heat of his skin. His fingers smoothing up to press against the bare expanse of his throat, where his pulse was thumping errantly against his skin.  
  
“I feel like a fool,” Caleb bit out, jaw jumping with sudden tension, “I apologise, this is ridiculous.”   
  
“Hey now, don’t be like that-” Mollymauk shushed, raising his free hand to catch Caleb’s own, pressing it firmer against his heated skin. “No apologies, either. Does it make you feel good? Do you want to do it?”  
  
Caleb looked at him for a brief moment, allowing their gazes to meet in the way they had never locked before, before he sagged into himself, dipping his head and digging his fingertips into Mollymauk’s touch.  
  
“Ja,” he bit out, abashed.  
  
“Then there’s no harm in it,” Mollymauk decided, patting Caleb’s cheek a little too roughly, like some burly matron. A hollow sounding _tap-slap-tap.  
  
_ Caleb, bless him, heaved a tired sort of soundless chuckle, leaning his face into Mollymauk’s caress. He twisted his head into the touch, grating his stinging stubble over the calloused skin there, and pressed his lips lightly to the heel of Mollymauk’s palm.  
  
In his chest, Mollymauk’s heart shuddered, and then lurched into a pounding beat.  
  
In his touch, Caleb moved easily, letting him draw them closer, until the heated plume of his breath washed over his lips. It was simple, too, to bring them together, and to lightly kiss him. On his chest, Caleb’s hand tightened into a fist around his cloak, leveraging himself to press firmly into the kiss.   
  
Caleb drew back shortly after, keeping it tepid and quiet. It was difficult to push things much further, after all, when the cold was stewing in his bones and they could risk waking their dozing companions.   
  
“You know, you could just, erm-” Caleb shrugged lightly, scuffing his boot listlessly through the gravel- “ask if you want to do that.”  
  
“Yeah?” Mollymauk heaved, breathless and nerves turning his fingers numb. “Which part?”  
  
“Any,” Caleb bit out, throat hitching as he swallowed, “just, ah, let me know… if you would like to.”  
  
“I think I want to,” Mollymauk said, even as his heart burned.   
  
“ _Sehr gut_ ,” Caleb sighed, “we can figure it out then. Find a way to make it all work.”  
  
Mollymauk nodded soundlessly, the painful stone in his chest easing and ebbing. That was all they could ever really do, wasn’t it, just give it a try? He allowed his lips to twitch up into a fond smile, a subdued reflection of how he ached to grin. Caleb matched the expression softly, a minor dimple cutting into his cheek as he smirked.   
  
After all, it _was_ just like Bo used to say; you need to give everything a shot once.   
  
Maybe they could make it work.


End file.
